Allan Massie: Lesson for imports is: Show commitment, be successful and Scots will embrace you

Published on Friday 3 September 2010 16:38

In his article about Henry Pyrgos in yesterday's Scotsman David Ferguson made the good point that, throughout our rugby history, Scottish selectors have always had to cast their net far and wide to compensate for what he rightly called "our meagre resources".

Back in the 1920s, one of the most successful of decades, A L Gracie, who in 1923 captained Scotland to our first win in Cardiff for 33 years, once remarked that "facetious friends assert that I have never been to Scotland except to play football". This wasn't, he insisted , quite true. Born in Ceylon where his father was a missionary, he remembered that at the age of three he had been brought home to visit his grandparents in Ayrshire. Nevertheless his acquaintance with the country was slight and he played all his club rugby with Harlequins and Manchester. Incidentally he was educated at the same school as Eric Liddell - Eltham College in Surrey, established for the sons of missionaries.

Of the famous Oxford three-quarter line who represented Scotland in the mid-twenties, only G P S Macpherson was born in Scotland. One of his colleagues, A C (Johnny) Wallace, an Australian, returned a couple of years after playing for Scotland as the captain of the touring New South Wales "Waratahs".

More remarkable still was the case of Doug Keller. who captained Scotland in 1949. He had come to Britain as a member of the 1947-8 Wallabies and remained here to complete his medical education at a London hospital. Then he turned out for London Scottish, and was whisked into the Scotland team. I suppose there was a Scottish-born parent or grandparent.

Anglo-Scots have of course been numerous, and indeed still are, the Evans brothers being recent examples. There is nothing reprehensible about this. After all, for a great many people in the United Kingdom, identification as Scots, English, Irish or Welsh is often a matter of choice. Even when claims to a Scottish nationality are thin or perhaps non-existent, we have usually been ready to welcome players ready to commit themselves to Scotland. Budge Pountney, for instance, was deemed eligible for Scotland only on account of a bizarre ruling which permitted - permits? - anyone with a Channel Islands ancestry to opt for any of the countries making up the UK. But nobody doubted the commitment to the cause of Pountney, a non-Scot who captained the national team. He took almost as many kicks and shoeings in Scotland's cause as David Leslie.

Sometimes we have been slow to warm to incomers. This was understandable in the case of Brendan Laney, who was hustled into the Scotland side with what seemed indecent haste, almost the minute he had set foot on Scottish soil. Laney, who Frank Hadden once called one of the most talented players he had ever coached, went on to have a marvellous career with Edinburgh, becoming a favourite with the club's following, but rarely reproduced his outstanding club form for Scotland.One wonders if he might have had a more successful international career if his introduction to the national team had been delayed a few months.

Yet John and Martin Leslie, also both capped almost as soon as they arrived from New Zealand, were quickly accepted. This was partly because they played a big part in winning the 1999 Five Nations title, partly perhaps because their grandfather had played football for Hibs. That said, John Leslie showed less commitment to Scottish rugby than Brendan Laney.

Likewise many of us, outside Glasgow at least, took a very long time to warm to Dan Parks, though his Scottish qualification was as good as that of many others made welcome more quickly. This may have been because he was seen as the favourite of his fellow-Australian Matt Williams, and Williams's honeymoon period as the national coach lasted for a very short time indeed. Then again, many of us were against Parks because we believed that Chris Paterson was the natural heir to Gregor Townsend's No 10 jersey, and resented the refusal of first Williams, and then Hadden, to give him an extended run at fly-half. All this was a bit unfair on Parks, who has, however, eventually come good and at last won over Scottish supporters and the Scottish media last season.

In contrast Nathan Hines, every bit as Australian as Parks, has always been accepted. However, far from being whisked into the Scotland side, he came up through the ranks, playing club rugby for Gala before being given a contract by Edinburgh. So nobody ever thought he hadn't earned his cap.

This surely is the point. A player whose previous connection with Scotland is slight will be accepted if he shows sufficient commitment and meets with success. It is the same with regard to those cricketers with South African accents in the present England XI. A good many people disapproved of the selection of Jonathan Trott last year, but their disapproval is fading fast.

Young Henry Pyrgos with an English father (of Cypriot background) and a Scottish mother may have opted for Scotland because England ignored him, But, if he proves himself for Glasgow, nobody will question his Scottishness. In any case he can hardly be said to have taken an easy option. The No 9 position is one where we have rarely had a dearth of ability. Indeed, apart from Glasgow's New Zealander Sam Pinder, who got a few caps in minor internationals or off the bench, we haven't had a scrum-half who was other than unquestionably Scottish since the Rhodesian L P MacLachlan, who played four times in 1954 while at Oxford University.